


learning to bend

by RainyForecast



Series: Unexpected Returns On Your Investment [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Baby Names, Derek Hale Can Have Nice Things, Derek Hale x Happiness, F/M, Hale Family Feels, I Regret Nothing Except For My Lousy French, Multilingual!derek, Non-Explicit Pregnant Sex, Pregnancy, shameless fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-05
Updated: 2015-06-05
Packaged: 2018-04-02 23:43:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4078405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RainyForecast/pseuds/RainyForecast
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Part One: http://archiveofourown.org/works/3867043</p><p> </p><p>“Hm, pretty sexy. Got any more where that came from, Tiger?</p><p>	“Je suis un loup-garou, mon petit chou.”</p><p>	“Derek. You did not just call me your little puff pastry.” </p><p> </p><p>or</p><p>Braeden makes some decisions one rainy night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	learning to bend

**Author's Note:**

> Fic greatly inspired by this Russian photography project of expecting couples asleep. The way some of the fathers slept touching their wives' stomaches just slew me: http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/jana-romanova-waiting-russian-pregnant-couples/79882
> 
> Oh sweet mercy forgive the terrible Google Translate French. 
> 
> Translations: 
> 
> Yeah? What is it? 
> 
> How nice.
> 
> I’m a werewolf, my little sweet bun/puff pastry. (Yes this is an actual french endearment and it’s GREAT)
> 
>  
> 
> Also, this fic has not been beta'd yet. I would have waited, but it's Braeden Appreciation Week on Tumblr and I couldn't wait. Your leniency is treasured!

It was a cold December night, and an icy rain was sluicing down the loft windows. They’d given up on the day and had retreated to bed early. Braeden found herself grateful for both the afghan Gran had sent them and Derek’s furnace-like warmth, granted by his werewolf metabolism. He had one arm around her, idly stroking his thumb across her shoulder. In his free hand he had yet another brick of a book, probably in a language other than English. Braden was flicking between tabs on her temperamental laptop: herbs and rare plants on one, ammo sales on another. She’d had an idea about bullets that would be affective against chupacabras, but found her mind wandering. 

 

“Derek.” She poked at his ribs. 

 

“ _Ouais?  Qu'est-ce que c’est?_ ” His book was French this time, then.

 

“Melissa wants to throw us a baby shower, even though the baby isn’t due until the middle of April.”

 

“ _Comme c'est gentil_.”

 

“Hm, pretty sexy. Got any more where that came from, Tiger?

 

“ _Je suis un **loup-garou** , mon petit chou_.”

 

“Derek. You did not just call me your little puff pastry.” Derek snickers at that, so Braeden shoves her laptop out of the way to tackle him as best she can while nearly six months pregnant. 

Five minutes later, Derek’s book has slid to the floor, the blankets are hopelessly snarled, and Derek has a rapidly healing bite mark on his collarbone. “Serves you right,” Braeden sniffs, watching the teethmarks disappear. It aways feels a little disappointing. Derek, while fairly gentlemanly about his wolf instincts, loves leaving a hickey or two on her skin. She always rolls her eyes at him for the lupine posturing, but she wouldn’t mind leaving a similar claim on him. That cashier at the grocery store had been entirely too friendly, until Braeden had inserted her pregnant self in front of Derek with a falsely cheerful “Almost done, _babe_?” Anyway. 

 

“Speaking of baby stuff, Gran will probably want to be here when she’s born, and stay a while after.”

 

“That’d be great.”

 

Braeden scoffs. “You don’t know Gran. She meddles. And is always right, which is infuriating.”

 

Derek laughs, smoothing a hand over the growing curve of her belly. “She’s your family.” 

 

“Der.”

 

“Mmhmm.” 

 

“Have you thought about names at all?” Braden asks. 

 

His hand stills its gentle stroking. “Have you?”

 

“Asked you first.”

 

“This is a trick question. I always figured, the women goes through the labor. She deserves the final say.” 

 

“You are a _disgusting_ suck-up.” 

 

He laughs again, in protest, folding his arms behind his head. He laughs easily these days. Much more easily. “I was raised in a matriarchal werewolf pack, remember. You did _not_ fail to give the Hale women the respect they deserved.”

 

Braeden grows thoughtful at the reminder of Derek’s family. She wonders what it would be like, to have something like Derek had, and to lose it. She’d grown up angry at the world, angry that her mother was off who knew where getting high, and that her father was unknown. But, in a twisted way, she’d had it easier. She’d had Gran—still had her. She had no idea what it was like to have a huge, loving family (a pack, she reminded herself) and then to lose it. 

 

“I don’t have any special family names, “ she says, after a moment. “Gran’s name is Luz, though. My great-grandfather’s mom was from Mexico.”

 

“Light,” Derek translates. “It’s beautiful.” 

 

Braeden pauses for a moment. She doesn't know how to broach the issue currently on her mind. Derek has lost a lot of people. She doesn’t know if naming his baby girl after one of them will be comforting or merely reopen old scars. 

“Talia Luz Hale,” she says quietly. Derek sucks in a breath and goes still. Braeden stares down at him, wondering if she’s made a mistake, but then he reaches out a hand to hook the back of her head, tugs her down until she’s crushed a little awkwardly against his chest. His heart races under her ear and she feels him take a shuddering breath, then another.  
“Yeah,” he finally croaks. “Yeah.”

 

***

 

Sometime later, the rain turns to rattling sleet, and Derek is still showing her exactly what he thinks about her decision. Flushed and a little love-drunk, Braeden blurts out something she had been planning to bring up at a much later date. 

 

“I want to take your last name”

 

“Ok.”

 

“Not because I believe in any bullshit 1950s gender roles.”

 

“I know.”

 

“Because I am a strong—stop kissing my neck, it’s distracting—independent woman; and I really, really don’t _need_ a man. “

 

“I know you don’t.” 

 

“But maybe I _want_ one. You. Maybe I want you. And think you deserve a daughter with your last name, Derek Silas Hale.”

 

“God, Braeden—“

 

“And Hale is a cool last name. Short, strong-sounding. Carries a certain cachet in supernatural circles.”

 

Derek’s eyes had gone impossibly wide. “Braeden, I  just realized that I don’t fucking know your last name-how is it that you’ve never-“

 

“It’s Bissle, actually, and you’re doing me a favor, babe. My father is, or was, a deadbeat, and alliterative names suck. Imagine _middle_ _school._ ”

 

“Glad to be of service,” Derek said, a smile in his voice. Either imagining a pre-teen Braden sulking about her name or gleeful about the endearment she’d just used. 

 

“I guess this means we’re getting married?” Braden can’t help but drum her fingers nervously on his chest. She’s proposing, pretty much. The person she was as recently as a year ago would be incredulous. 

 

When lifts her eyes to see what his expression is, he’s grinning. She doesn't think she’s ever seen him smile that widely and honestly.

 

“I guess it does.” 

 

“No froufrou nonsense. Courthouse is good enough for me. And the werewolf thing with the moonlight and the running in the woods, if you want. Or more like a fast walk. As I am huge and getting huge-r.” 

 

“Whatever is ok with you, Mrs. Hale.” The last words end on a subvocal werewolf rumble that she feels resonate deep in his chest. 

 

“Ugh, _Mrs_.”

 

“ _Ms_. Hale.” 

 

“That sounds pretty good.”

 

“You’re a gross sap.”

 

“Hmhmm. Your sap.”

 

“You-nope. You can’t just SAY things like that. Who does that? Boy, take your clothes off. Right now.” Her hands are scrabbling at the waistband of the ratty boxers he sleeps in, the collar of his white undershirt. Derek surges up, caging her with his arms, something definitely of the wolf in his grin, before reaching up to pull off the shirt, arching with the motion. Fucker, he knows what that particular move makes his chest look like. Sinking back down, he turns her onto her side, as gentle as if he’s handling glass. Sex is a little more interesting while she’s pregnant, but they make it work. 

 

***

 

Later. Derek sleeps, and Braden lies awake. He’s curled around her, arm thrown over her waist, hand spread across her stomach even in sleep. She’s thinking back over her scoffing at the sentimental things he says. He’s not weak, though, she thinks. She thinks of wire, of electricity, of blood. The acrid smell of burning wolfsbane. And she thinks about how he's the strongest person she’s ever met. And slowly, to the rhythm of his breathing, she falls asleep. 


End file.
